Coolant leak likely behind blaze at Australia's Tesla battery site, says probe

The technical probe into the three-day fire incident at a massive Tesla battery site in Australia has revealed that it may have been probably sparked by a coolant leak, safety regulators said on Tuesday.

The blaze had destroyed two giant Tesla batteries completely.

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Safety regulator Energy Safe Victoria’s technical probe said, "The most likely root cause of the incident was a leak within the Megapack cooling system that caused a short circuit that led to a fire in an electronic component."

The fire broke out at Victoria Big Battery project, which is being built by French renewable energy firm Neoen using Tesla batteries. The site is near Geelong, about an hour's drive from Melbourne.

The fire started on July 30 with a 13-tonne lithium battery, which is the size of a shipping container. It took firefighters three days to bring it under control.

In a statement, incident controller Ian Beswicke had said, "There was one battery pack on fire to start with, but it did spread to a second pack that was very close to it."

The battery site, which is one of the largest in the world, is designed to store energy produced by renewables and send power to the grid.

Neoen Australia managing director Louis de Sambucy had said no one was injured in the incident.

In the review, the safety regulator said to have relied on an examination of the scene, a Tesla investigation, video footage and data from the incident. In the probe, both Tesla and Neoen had cooperated, it said.

(With inputs from agencies)